Most likely, you own the most or rent a property to live in
And certainly you have neighbors.
Most of you know, that if you enter the property of your neighbors
without permission.
In fact, you can be arrested for infringing the property of others.
But this is enforceable here in Germany
Because all properties are registered with the state
And thus are protected by law.
In many countries across the world,
By contrast, perhaps up to 70% of the land is not registered
But even for people in some of these countries,
Where they have a registered title deed,
To a certain extent, these title deeds have nothing to do with how they live.
I think, for example the Masai family,
They have 800 heads, 500 goats and so on,
Donkeys and other animals.
Depend on the land for all their basic needs,
Water, food, animal food,
And even drugs.
For them, receive a title to the ownership of individual lands
Can in fact lead to loss of access to vital resources.
In fact, title ownership of individual lands can leave them worse
If as Carrie mentioned, I worked for a project,
Called “For the Earth.”
In this project
We create an innovative tool for the Earth recording period.
Our goal is to reduce the proportion of unregistered land,
We try to make it zero.
Using a new tool that enables us to quickly find a property map.
The project includes eight partners,
But they are spreading across six countries.
I work for the GIS, here in Munster
So when we were invited to join the project, let’s start the project
I was really excited
Because the target countries are Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia
All located in East Africa
This is not far from my country, Malawi
We embarked on this trip, as part of the team
To create a small piece of programming
To allow communities on a local scale to register their land
Using hand-drawn maps
For example, this is here
Our software must be able to read and manipulate drafts by hand
The photographer understands them
Then organize them
It can be used with other data on the ground
This is our goal
With this in mind, we started work
We created some initial designs and built the prototype
So we tested the workflow on a site here in Germany
But quickly after a few months
We arrived in the southern Masai city of Kenya called Kajiado
Almost as soon as we arrive,
All our plans that we have taken, what we have planned so far,
He began to fall apart.
All our assumptions were in fact fundamentally wrong.
This happened when we got there,
There was drought.
People needed more time to go and look for water and animal food.
In fact, the first day when we were there.
In fact, we were trapped with the population at the local water well.
This was the only place you could meet people at day time.
We rushed to work, we were standing under a tree,
Researchers and people from the community.
And my colleague, Ceren, of the University of Leuven
She started with her own part of the interview.
She prepared an unorganized interview.
I started asking questions,
But with time, I began to move from the first question to the second and then the third,
I began to stress,
Because I was standing beside her,
But the problem is that I have ten pages of the survey by myself,
I have attended everything until the moment.
I thought to myself how I would have a very organized interview.
In this very effective dialogue.
Before I finished thinking, it was my turn to start questions.
I went, “It’s your turn” I thought, my God.
Anyway, I started my poll. My first question.
I read the first question.
The translator stands beside me, translating the questions into the Maasai language.
Then there were two seconds of silence.
Then after silence, everyone bursts out laughing.
Well, what a funny thing you said?
I took a moment to recover because I know my question is simple.
There were about 15 to 20 men standing around me,
There were almost five others who had just walked 30 kilometers
With their animal from Tanzania, across the border,
Just to feed cattle in the area.
What am I doing?
I looked again at my poll
I read the second question; I said to forget the first.
But over time, I lifted my head again
I realized she was not the same face around me always.
They were like standing there, going to talk to someone else.
They return again
Perhaps watching the cattle a bit,
I thought this could mean some things,
However, this exercise is completely boring for these people,
Or they are too busy.
I moved to the second, of course, because they have more pressing concerns.
We found them in their workplace,
Which we were doing,
So I decided: Damn this.
I put my survey back in my pocket
I have just started talks with them.
We just stood up and made a simple chat.
Through this we learned a lot,
For example, we learned that the Masai never had any land in a traditional way
Something we had an idea about,
But not in the modern sense of owning land, right?
So, it was something they were always forced to do
It dates back to the colonial era.
Most of the things they told us
They covered small stories.
They were not simple facts. It was story after story.
For example, there was a young man who came to us and told us a story
Which illustrate a specific loose relationship
About the Masai with their land.
I have detected an abnormality,
Detect something wrong
About the limits of a large piece of land
Which belong to one family.
When I say family, of course I mean husband, wife and children
I mean almost 10 families or more brothers, relatives, and so on,
Live together on this piece of land and share their resources, right?
What happened is
They have other land plots nearby, right?
People in families in these plots of land nearby
In fact, they divided their land
Then they sold parts of these pieces to other people
In the process, somewhat border moved
That is in favor of new conspiracies.
Thus, a large piece of their land was lost because of this family
Who lived together
The problem, of course, is
The discovery that was good is that they found
Actually, 12 years was too late.
Because in Kenya, you can only object
Issuing land titles over 12 years
These changes have been registered by the state more than 20 years ago.
How did this happen?
How did they not discover this?
This happens when they live together, they are taught about borders,
But in fact, they have never considered it a hindrance to politics,
As a limitation, as if you could not go there.
When they grazed their sheep or when they collected firewood,
Or doing other activities in the land, they would only cut the earth back and forth
It was not a problem for who this piece was.
Unfortunately, of course, when the changes took place
In those adjacent blocks,
They never really bothered themselves, to see what was happening with the border
And with actual information recorded.
Anyway, we moved on to other conversations.
Later, we asked the residents to draw us some maps
To clarify the things they were telling us,
The stories they told us.
This is an example:
This is the Maasai dwelling.
The Masai family lives in organized circular huts,
It is called Incanj
Usually in the middle, they have a circular area,
Fenced shed or several sheds,
Where they keep their pets at night.
This is to protect wild animals.
The traditional Maasai hut in their language is called Enkaji
Or in combination called Incajijek
This is similar to the outside.
Cottages usually belong to wives.
If there is one man for the Incanj and several wives,
Each wife has her own small cottage for her family.
Every wife also has an entrance,
So the entrance gate is in Incang.
It is responsible for this portal.
She is responsible for opening them in the morning
And closed at night.
These gates are guarded by a group of large branches of a tree,
Called Ultim.
Once the otites are placed inside the gate
No one can enter it, especially men.
The men can not walk on the olets
Because in their culture this is forbidden.
There are also tricky rules about which gate can be used and for what purpose
For example, they have a gate for goats only.
And one of the other entrances to the population
Perhaps another one for small cattle.
The point I want to make here is,
Maasai dwelling in fact, has a complex spatial and social structure,
This structure is rich in meanings.
Unfortunately, in many current information systems
To record land, this rich sense has lost.
Focus more on land plots,
The way we do here in Germany,
Borders and coordinates.
When we asked them to draw these maps for us the first time, we asked them,
These trivial questions in the first interview,
It looks like an illusion. Can you draw a map of your land?
Comrades were like: What the hell are you talking about?
After our return from the trip,
I also asked myself the same question
What is the purpose of these fees that we are looking for?
Obviously, we must change our strategy.
We spent about four months here and then returned.
This time we organized special workshops,
In fact we organized things earlier.
We had workshops for men, and workshops for women
And during the discussions that people were discussing
What I thought were important to them;
For example, how to preserve our source of water
Or where wild animals are always present
What are the most important places for trees,
Or other types of plant life?
Something we learned during the time, during the discussion, is
The older one seems to have a particular skill.
To read the scene.
For example, they will see, they will watch plant life
Then they go like: Let’s dig for water here.
Of course, younger men do not understand this much
I guess it comes with experience
But I think it was a deep knowledge
We wanted to capture this knowledge.
We wanted to get them in our maps
So we also asked them to draw some maps for us.
For example, this is a single map
Drawn by a group of women
You see some circles here.
These represent housing,
You also see the existence of some mountains.
The map is largely detailed, invisible from here;
From where we get water.
Where wild animals,
All kinds of features;
Where the main river in our region.
In the corners
There are small triangles that represent the boundaries of their plant.
We are able to get very rich information
Which can not be found in official records in the absence of representation
For official information on the borders of their ownership.
We can set these limits in terms of features
Which are important to them in their lives
We started out, we wanted to create a small tool to help digitize the maps,
Earth maps, Maps of the objects.
But in the process, we learned
It is not just a piece of land.
It is a relationship between people and their land,
Which is usually neither simple nor compatible with the method
We look at land as property by contract, an individual title deed and a monarchy.
In the process we also learned to be relevant to our own technology
We must answer questions of interest to society
Which is where we are on this trip
In fact it is a journey to prepare information about land and power
To document the land of persons.
What we are capable of so far,
With everything we have learned, with all the concepts we have gathered,
We currently have a programming tool, or a prototype
Capable of extracting meaningful digital objects
Of these hand-drawn maps.
A little like a vague speech;
But these are mountains,
Various housing and so on
With this rich information we can integrate them afterwards
With existing maps, we will create new maps, rich new maps,
And rich new interactions with the data generator of the community.
I must introduce to you this last picture
Because it is somewhat special for me.
At the end of the last workshop, some kind of role reversal, women invited me
Outside they say, “Hello, come!” I went and said, “What’s the matter?”
If: “Stand here” they gave me a present.
The Masai bracelet was hand-embroidered
One of the women said, “I made this
I thought it would be a nice gift for you. “
This was special.
To me she put an end to the beginning of this relationship.
Which I hope will last forever
With these very wonderful people too
Who shared their time and knowledge with us in the state of Kajidou
Which I long to refer to.
thank you.
(clap)
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